We're only as adaptive as . . . our designs?

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade . . . or so the optimistic phrase goes. But when it comes down to real life, are we really this adaptive? Can we be?

As design and designed environments, experiences, and objects become more prolific, there is an increasing need to better understand our audiences. Similarly, there is an ethical responsibility for us to design structures and systems that can adapt to the ever-changing needs of human populations. Emergent identities or designing for such may be more a question of adaptations. Are we only as adaptive as our living situations, conditions, and surroundings allow us to be?

To continue the analogy, when life gives you lemons, can you make lemonade if you don't have any container to store liquids? What if you simply just don't know how to make lemonade? Do you even know what lemonade is?

While many (including myself) will argue that human beings are adaptive creatures and will creatively 'make do' with what they have, the level or ease of adaptation can be greatly increased by designs that are also able to adjust. Looking to how people adapt can inform how we design things that allow for flexibility, adaptability, and change. Designs should foster the sense of fluidity and organic-ness that is evident in social behaviors, human patterns, etc. As well as better serving the needs of the human population, dynamic designs will also fulfill the need for a more eco-conscious, sustainable design practice. By making our designs more flexible, their purpose and use extends further into the future, reducing the need for redesigns and additional waste of precious resources – whether those are time, money, or physical materials.

Ultimately, there is a need for a symbiotic relationship between a design and its audience. Each should each inform the other and be allowed to change, adjust, and adapt according to one another's needs. I think this is especially important in terms of identity formation and representation; such a representative form should be dynamic and able to adjust according to the changes in the population it is representing. Being able to see adjustments according to your changing needs or preferences is important; similarly, having a certain amount of control over a system or structure that is attempting to define who you are is critical. Consider, for example, identity representations of which we currently have control: our wardrobe, our home furnishings, even our cars. We are able to adjust these extensions of ourselves in order to more appropriately relate our style, mood, or personal philosophy. When we don't have the tools or the means to make these changes, we can feel awkward and uncomfortable at the very least. For this reason, designs that seek to represent an individual or population should be able to adjust and relate the emerging identities that are inherent to biological beings.